


HalBarry Shorts

by ChocolateTeapots



Category: DCU
Genre: Drabble Collection, Drabble as a State of Mind rather than an Actual Story Length, M/M, Story Specific Tags in the Chapter Notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:40:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28457709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolateTeapots/pseuds/ChocolateTeapots
Summary: It's a one shot collection.Ch 1: A Terrible PunCh 2: Goodbye 2020
Relationships: Barry Allen/Hal Jordan
Comments: 12
Kudos: 20





	1. A Terrible Pun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Tags: Cruel and Unusual PUNishment, Impending Facepalm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry. Though I will say that the title came before the picture.
> 
> All the rest will be stories! 
> 
> Unless I come up with more puns.


	2. Goodbye 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Tags: Covid vibes without any actual Covid, Innuendo, Established Relationship
> 
> Also, Central City snow plow unions probably have a superhero clause, I guess?
> 
> And thank you [gumiii_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gumiii_writes/pseuds/gumiii_writes) for betaing and always being up for a silly writing journey!

Barry stretches, working the blood back into his fingers now that they were no longer frozen around a snow shovel. His fingers are numb and his side aches in ways it never does after circumnavigating the globe, but the eight inches of snowfall now brackets the clear streets in neat lines. There aren’t many people out, but he’s worked enough New Year’s Eves to know how the snow can interfere with any emergency response.

The store signs, billboards, and street lights glitter off the snow in soft blends he’s not used to seeing in Central. In the normal daily grind, the snow barely has time to settle before being churned into slush underfoot. It seems only right for the snow to get a couple of good hours in before the city starts its new year in earnest.

He turns as the entire square is bathed in green light, smiling up at Hal as he descends to street level.

“Thanks for the help. I’m sure snow duty wasn’t how you’d hoped to spend tonight.”

“You know me. I’m ready to plow for you anytime,” Hal says with a wink to Barry’s snort. “Did you catch any of the fireworks? Central really pulled out all the stops this year.” 

Barry glances up at the clock illuminating the square. 12:34. Well, looks like he’s missed the festivities yet again.

“There’s always next year,” he says with a shrug. “Do you want me to run you to Ollie’s party? It’s still over an hour before midnight in Star City. That’s more than enough time for you two to embarrass each other.” He raises his arms and winces as his entire body protests. “Though maybe give me ten minutes first.”

Hal’s skepticism shows clearly through the domino mask. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Two hand constructs emerge from the ring and start massaging Barry’s shoulders. Barry leans into them with a groan of appreciation. He closes his eyes to savor the feeling as the knots in his back melt away.

“Aw, crap!” Barry’s eyes fly open at Hal’s exclamation, but instead of a supervillain he just sees Hal with his palm to his face. “I can’t get drunk this year! And that’s the whole reason for going to Ollie’s parties!”

“I won’t tell him you said that,” Barry says, his tone neutral despite inwardly cringing. He’s been trying not to remind Hal of the current situation, and then he walks right into it.

Hal had returned to Earth a couple days earlier after several months off world. He’d found Barry on top of a skyscraper in Central, wrapping his arms around him tightly when Barry had rushed over and drew him into a hug. Barry had pulled back a moment later, wondering at the heatless pressure telltale of the Green Lantern ring force field, a force field that Hal usually dropped the moment he found Barry.

Hal had woven a long, winding tale about a couple of rookies returning to Oa with a mystery virus, and the subsequent outbreak and countermeasures involving a planetary lockdown, far too many ring-based conference calls, and a hallucinating Guy Gardner belting a cappella rock anthems over the global intercom. Long story short, the Lanterns were pretty sure they’d gotten things under control, but everyone leaving Oa was on strict New Planet Protocols - which mostly boiled down to 24/7 force fields - until they finished up the final rounds of tests.

Since he’d been back, Hal had been sleeping in the Watchtower’s containment area. While the ring’s force field wasn’t directly tied to his consciousness, they hadn’t wanted to risk it turning off while he slept. The full time force field also meant any civilian activities were off the table, but they’d been trying to make the best of it.

So Barry had arranged for Hal’s brother, Jim, and his family to visit the Watchtower for an impromptu Hanukkah/Christmas/New Year’s celebration. Barry spent as much time as he could up there with him, though they’d given up on certain activities after a particularly sterile kiss had led to Hal declaring the force field order the “Blue Balls Protocols.” From there, he’d continued on to reimagine the Green Lantern Corp. under the “Fun Police,” which left them both rolling with laughter. 

But as much as Hal made light of it, Barry could tell the past months were wearing on him. So he’d done his best to take Hal’s mind off things. They’d spent most of their time together in uniform, patrolling and joking together and flying to the moon, and if Barry sometimes just longed for the familiar warmth of Hal’s arm around his shoulder, well, then he kept that to himself.

It had been a trying year for everyone, even without considering this latest obstacle. The last thing he wanted to do was dwell on it.

Hal huffs a laugh, the action a little disconcerting without the accompanying puff of mist from his breath. “Ollie knows where he stands in comparison to his booze,” Hal proclaims. “And I maintain that you’d appreciate drunk Ollie more if you were drunk yourself. Hey, since you don’t need to be my designated driver this year, let’s grab that Bolovaxian whiskey before heading over. Then _I_ can have embarrassing stories to tell about _you_ for a change.”

“I’ll pass, thanks,” Barry replies dryly. “I’m perfectly happy not starting the new year with a hangover.” He paused. “I do wish I’d caught the fireworks, though.”

Hal glanced at the clock again. “If you want fireworks, you missed Central’s display, but there are still a couple of time zones that haven’t closed the book on 2020.”

Hal’s right - twenty minutes is plenty of time for the Flash to hop a time zone. Barry pushes himself up on his toes, satisfied when he only feels the slightest soreness in his muscles. “Alright,” he holds out his arms, wiggling his fingers at Hal and barely suppressing a grin. “All aboard the Flash Express.”

Hal snorts, floating over and dropping himself into Barry’s waiting arms. “You know,” he says as he flicks one of Barry’s earpieces, “that is not how I use that phrase.”

Barry chuckles as they both adjust their grip, then takes off running.

It occurs to Barry as I-70’s street lights fade into the long dark stretches between cities that this is actually their first New Year’s together. Technically it had been last year, but Barry had been called out to a crime scene shortly before midnight and had insisted that Hal go to Ollie’s party without him. It hadn’t struck him as particularly meaningful at the time. He’d been the Flash for years and with the police force for longer, so he was intimately familiar with how futile and counterproductive it was to stew over interrupted plans.

So many things about their relationship were unconventional anyway, just out of necessity. He’d joked shortly after they started dating that it’d probably be a decade before they were able to celebrate both their birthdays in the same year without having some sort of crisis getting in the way, super or otherwise. So far life hadn’t done anything to prove him wrong.

He slows down somewhere around Denver, veering off to less populated streets before coming to a full stop. He tilts Hal back onto his feet in a practiced motion. “Got any ideas where to set up?”

Hal glances around, then floats upward. “Hell yeah I do. Come on.” He forms a bubble around Barry and drags him through the air behind him as he ascends. 

It’s not long before Hal decides they’ve reached a good height. The sphere around him morphs into a green couch that Hal drops into next to him. Barry pushes back the hood of his uniform and gets hit with a single blast of frigid air before Hal’s pulling up a construct blanket around the two of them.

Barry thumbs Hal’s recreation of his couch’s throw blanket. “And you call me a dork,” he says as he scooches a little closer. He can’t feel any heat off Hal, but he blocks the wind and is reassuringly steady at his side. “This must look so bizarre to anyone looking up.”

“If you wanted lawn chairs, you only had to ask.”

Hal cackles when Barry’s arms wrap his neck in a stranglehold as the seat beneath them starts to shift, lengthening and tilting in disorienting ways. It’s back to being a couch after one very long moment for Barry - it’s much easier not to think about his mild acrophobia when Hal isn’t pulling stunts like that.

“What? They’re outdoor furniture, so that's less weird, right?”

The unabashed bray of Hal’s laugh settles something in Barry, a discontent he hadn’t been able to articulate since Hal had come back. He’s been reminding himself that Hal could have very easily been stuck on Oa, but knowing his disappointment is unreasonable only does so much to assuage it. What’s working better is seeing the crinkle around Hal’s eyes when Barry tells some awful pun, or the fond quirk of his lips when he thinks Barry isn’t looking, or the aborted head tilt when he forgets why it’s not worth it to go in for the kiss.

Barry just hopes Hal can read his own feelings as clearly. He knows he’s not always great at showing that sort of thing.

He settles his arm around Hal’s waist as he jokes, “So, this is the plan? Seeing in the new year while debating the merits of floating lawn furniture?”

“No, doofus, the idea is to debate floating lawn furniture with _you_.”

Barry turns towards him at the emphasis, the admission tugging at something in his chest.

Hal might have been feeling a bit of it too, from the way he’s hidden his face in Barry’s shoulder, and the rasp in his voice as he says, “Look, the fireworks are starting.”

Light blooms before them, a plume of white shining brilliant against the black. It’s joined by a splash of red beside it, then green, then gold in a tight bouquet of overlapping bursts. The smoky afterimages hang in the air, illuminated anew by each new flash of light before dissipating to make way for the next one.

More light flares off to his left, miles and inches apart: one more town’s fireworks display. Another cluster shimmers into being, then another, and another, until the darkness below them is alight with dancing colors.

“My dad used to fly me up to watch the fireworks,” Hal admits quietly. Low pops and crackles punctuate his pause, the ongoing fireworks too far away for anything else. He huffs out a laugh. “Those were the only times I wasn’t begging him to do more barrel rolls.”

Barry can picture the warm quirk of his lips vividly, even without turning away from the light show painting the world below them. He pulls the blanket a little tighter around the both of them, leaning in to the solidness of Hal next to him. “Is that a no barrel roll promise?”

“Hey, I didn’t say _that_.” Barry can hear the smile in his voice, and his own lips turn up in return. “Gotta keep my options open. Who knows what could happen?”

Who knew, indeed.

It wasn’t that anything actually changed on New Year’s besides the calendars. It was just a day like any other, except for everyone’s collective agreement in this darkest time of the year to gather and reflect, to acknowledge the highs and the lows, the mistakes and the triumphs, and to be better for them. That, despite the night and the cold, it was a time to look forward together, regardless of what that togetherness actually looked like.

So he watches the countless lights painting the night below them, floating high in the air and embraced on all sides by the comforting weight of Hal’s will. It isn’t how he’d ever pictured spending New Year’s Eve, but he just tucks his head against Hal’s and thinks that, for this year, he wouldn’t see it off any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize all the stuff about the GL force fields is pretty much headcanon, so hopefully I explained it well enough for the purposes of the story? It basically comes down to that, if it’s keeping a thin layer of atmosphere around the Lantern in space and not letting anything biological in/out on new planets, touching it wouldn’t feel like touching the person underneath.
> 
> Anyway, it’s been… a year. But I know fandom and fanfiction made mine a little better, and I hope it did for you too. Happy New Year!


End file.
